


A Connotation of Infinity

by Lysandra



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-06-04 20:30:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6674470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysandra/pseuds/Lysandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birds of a feather are happy together. Kitty and Bartimaeus live and learn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You have to promise not to scream,” I said.

“For the last time,” said Kitty, sitting forward attentively from where she was parked on the sofa, “I promise.”

I didn’t believe her. You humans are all “ _Oh, I‘m not afraid of anything!_ ” until you’re face to face with something truly alien, and then it’s all crying and puking and begging for mercy.

Not that I could picture Kitty doing any of that, but I never knew what it would be that would finally send her over the edge. At some point, I feared, there would be something that was just too weird even for her. And then, maybe, I’d never see her again.

The thought sent a terrible pang through my essence. 1

Still, something about this was necessary. Kitty wanted to know what I looked like, and she wouldn’t be satisfied until she’d seen it. “It” in this case being my true form.

I’d tried to explain to her that my true form was merely an imperfect expression of myself here on Earth; that the “real” me was my pure essence, as she’d seen in the Other Place.

She’d called me a ‘wuss’, and then laughed. So here we were.

I took a deep breath 2 and relaxed, letting my true form come forward onto the first plane. I didn’t look Kitty in the eye. I merely waited. I could say it was like being naked, but that wasn’t it at all. I’d been naked in all my various incarnations in front of plenty of people - _that_ didn’t bother me at all. But humans, as a general rule, didn’t see my true form. This was far more intimate than mere indecent exposure - it was like my soul was exposed.

“Oh,” said Kitty. “That’s…something.” She wasn’t sobbing or vomiting, which I counted as a victory.

“So,” I said nervously. “What do you think?”

“Actually,” said Kitty, admirably not fleeing the room, “I think it has character. Except I’m not sure which part I’m supposed to look at. Where is your face?”

“It’s the part that’s _glaring daggers at you_.”

“Oh! Yes, I see it now.”

Kitty was simply looking with an odd mixture of confusion and affection. It was as if I’d shown her an incredibly embarrassing birth mark, and she was getting ready to assure me that it _didn’t_ look infected, actually, but rather sort of endearing.

“You worry too much about appearances,” said Kitty. “You could be a many-tentacled swamp monster and I wouldn’t care.”

“If it’s a many-tentacled swamp monster you want…” I started, my essence softening.

Kitty’s eyes widened. “Oh- Bartimaeus, don’t- oh, _yuck_.” 

“See?” I protested, slopping a tentacle from side to side, “you do care!”

“It’s not that- it’s just- will you stop _doing_ that?” Kitty was aghast with a mixture of horror and laughter.

“I’ll have you know,” I said, crossing two tentacles haughtily, “that there are certain people who would be _delighted_ by this form.”

“Really.”

“Really! They’re flexible, you see, the tentacles. In Japan-“

“You know what? I don’t want to know,” said Kitty quickly.

“Oh, very well. Spoilsport.” I shifted back into Ptolemy’s grinning form.

“What are you all smiling about?” she asked, but she was smiling, too.

“It really doesn’t bother you,” I said.

“Why would it?”

“Well, I mean…it’s easy to forget, isn’t it? That I’m not human.”

Kitty’s laugh was delightful. “What sort of cliché garbage is that?” she said. “It’s not the sort of thing I just _forget_ , Bartimaeus.”

“But-“

“Yesterday,” she interrupted, “you chased the deer out of my backyard in the shape of a howling banshee.”

I shut my mouth. 3 She had a point, really. Kitty’s face softened.

“Look,” she said, “I know what you are. I don’t think about it _all_ the time, but I _know_. And I like you anyway. Got that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. It was meant as a joke, but it came out all low and reverent, completely ruining the atmosphere of lighthearted detachment we’d had going. Embarrassing.

I couldn’t help it; it was something about the way she was looking at me, with one eyebrow raised and a little smirk on her lips. Her eyes sparkled. It was a facial expression that said _You’re full of shit, but I love it_. I got all muddled and weird when she looked at me like that.

Ptolemy had befuddled and confused and irritated me plenty, but this was different. She made me feel like my essence was melting. It was worrisome.

“Do I really look old enough to be a _ma’am_?” Kitty asked, pretending to be aghast. “Perhaps it’s time I redyed my hair.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” I said. “You’re perfect.” There I went _again_! What had gotten into me?! I hoped - prayed - for this hellish Earth to open up and swallow me.

“You know I can’t let you forget that you said that,” she said, looking up at me from under her lashes. “I’m _peeerfeeeect_.”

“Serves me right for paying you a compliment,” I sniffed.

“Alright,” said Kitty, “here’s one in exchange. Your true form is perfectly acceptable.”

“Ooh, acceptable, is it? Don’t get too overzealous there.”

“I _mean_ it looks…good. It looks like _you_.” Kitty was looking at me. I was looking at her. My essence was melting again. It was hard to quip properly when that happened. I took a moment to take in the sunlight settling through the windows of the front room, lighting up the motes of dust in the air. It was a small room. Humble, really, full of secondhand furniture and overdue library books. But it had personality, just like its sole inhabitant. It gave the impression that this house, as a place, wasn’t really necessary, but should be flattered that it was being used. The couch was burgundy, and faded from sitting in the sun when the curtains were always open.

And on it: Kitty, her hair still silver (though she was always threatening to dye it), her eyes hard as flint but far warmer. Stubborn, ridiculous, human.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she said.

So there we were, with that strange implacable tension between us, girl and djinni, standing in the sun.  
\----  
1 Not that I _wanted_ to be on Earth, mind. But Earth was where Kitty was, and, well…compromises had to be made.  
2 Metaphorically.  
3 Usually a rare occurrence, but around Kitty it happened uncomfortably often.


	2. Completion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he’s being honest, Bartimaeus has never been completely certain which world he belongs to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that 1sentence thing everyone was doing in 2006? I did it for this pair when I was 16, scoured it from the internet because it sucked, and just now did it again. This chapter is rated T for vaguely salacious content.

**#1 - Comfort:** Kitty doesn’t ever say _I’m sorry about Ptolemy_ or _That shouldn’t have happened_ , but when Bartimaeus talks about him and she sees him tense with pain, she is quick to take his hand and say, “I owe him so much.”

**#2 - Kiss:** Kitty shuts him up the only way she can - with her mouth - and before she can stammer out an apology the djinni is twisting his fingers into her hair and kissing her like he’s been waiting two thousand years for this (which, of course, he has).

**#3 - Soft:** He thrills every time he touches her, because he could snap her spine or tear out her heart or incinerate her in seconds, but for some senseless reason she utterly trusts him not to.

**#4 - Pain:** She’s rubbing his back (anything she can do to ease the pain of confinement), and when she digs her thumbs into a spot at the base of his spine, he is quite relieved that she mistakes his gasp for one of discomfort.

**#5 - Potatoes:** Kitty stops cooking with garlic and rosemary and eats her potatoes plain with salt and pepper, but she can’t help feeling she always gets the easy half of their compromises.

**#6 - Rain:** On rainy days, Kitty sometimes sits on the sofa with her legs drawn up, her face like stormclouds, and Bartimaeus cannot fathom what she’s thinking.

**#7 - Chocolate:** There’s never any chocolates and flowers between them, but isn’t what they have so much more _exciting?_

**#8 - Happiness:** Sometimes Bartimaeus smiles without any daggers or edges or cunning, his eyes lighting up like sunrise, and Kitty can almost feel her own aura aflame.

**#9 - Telephone:** Bartimaeus insists he’s being helpful when he answers the phone using Kitty’s voice and cheerfully lays into her acquaintances.

**#10 - Ears:** Sometimes, usually when they’re tangled together in her bed, she hears him sigh in his own ancient mother tongue; her keen ears pick out the syllables and she clumsily repeats them back to him, teasing, but he cups her face in his hands and looks at her so deeply she feels faint.

**#11 - Name:** His name is a wound and a mantle all at once, and every time she uses it he reclaims a little piece of himself.

**#12 - Sensual:** The touch of her hot, heavy, earthen body against his essence is like the meeting of heaven and earth; they meld into each other and before long they can’t remember if there was supposed to be one of them or two.

**#13 - Death:** They both know how this is going to end.

**#14 - Sex:** “Is that an inferno stick in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” she asks, grinding on his lap, and he bites her earlobe and chuckles, “Either way, you’re going to be screaming in a minute.”

**#15 - Touch:** She maps out his essence with her fingers and delights in being the only one who knows how to render him insensible with pleasure.

**#16 - Weakness:** In his darker moments, Bartimaeus curses himself for letting this happen.

**#17 - Tears** : Bartimaeus is one of few people ever to see Kitty cry; he might just be the only one to see her cry _twice_.

**#18 - Speed:** Somehow he’s always surprised at how quickly her fist connects with his face.

**#19 - Wind:** If he is fire and air, she thinks, and she is earth and water, then how can they ever be a complete whole without each other?

**#20 - Freedom:** “Ptolemy thought he could free me,” says Bartimaeus, and Kitty, smiling, says, “Perhaps he did.”

**#21 - Life:** Bartimaeus will never admit it, but Earth is where he feels most desperately alive.

**#22 - Jealousy:** When Kitty realizes where Bartimaeus’s dislike of Jakob _really_ comes from, she cannot stop laughing.

**#23 - Hands:** She cries out, face flushed, knees shaking, because oh, _oh_ , he is good with his hands.

**#24 - Taste:** “Don’t you want me to change form?” asks the beautiful dark-haired woman, and Kitty merely shakes her head and mutters, “Don’t care what you look like.” before shoving her tongue back in Bartimaeus’s mouth.

**#25 - Devotion:** Bartimaeus of Uruk does not belong to anyone, but if he did it would be Kitty Jones.

**#26 - Forever:** This would be so much easier if Kitty was a spirit with his lifespan - _but_ , whispers a sinister voice inside him, _would you really want her if she was?_

**#27 - Blood:** Kitty asks him for war stories - true ones - and she wonders if he realizes that the ones he chooses to tell are not of those he’s killed, but those he managed to save.

**#28 - Sickness:** When he catches another djinni eyeing the two of them suspiciously across the park, Bartimaeus winks and performs a vulgar gesture illustrating what, exactly, they’ve been getting up to; the interloper looks like he’s going to be ill.

**#29 - Melody:** “ _Igi badbadani u kunib, igi gunani shuzu ngarbi_ ”, he sings liltingly to himself, and when Kitty asks him about the song he simply smiles and shrugs a little.

**#30 - Star:** Bartimaeus is the sun around which Kitty’s life revolves, and she wonders sometimes if he’ll even remember her when she’s gone.

**#31 - Home:** If he’s being honest, Bartimaeus has never been completely certain which world he belongs to.

**#32 - Confusion:** He can almost see Ptolemy grinning at how long it took stubborn old Bartimaeus to realize he was in love with her.

**#33 - Fear:** Kitty’s not sure where this strength came from when she pulls the enemy afrit off of Bartimaeus, and the only thing inside her head is _No no no no no_.

**#34 - Lightning/Thunder:** It’s not fear that makes Kitty’s heart beat fast when she watches lightning stream from the djinni’s fingers, a river of elemental power.

**#35 - Bonds:** Bartimaeus walks the earth without magical bindings now, but he is tied here nonetheless - by something much stronger.

**#36 - Market:** Bartimaeus comes to the street market with Kitty because it makes her happy, but he can’t stop scanning for danger in the wide open space, because if something happened to her, he’d-

**#37 - Technology:** Bartimaeus remembers being bamboozled by technology a thousand years ago; the incident with the television is totally understandable and you can stop laughing, _Kathleen_.

**#38 - Gift:** “I have a present for you,” says Kitty, and points to the place in the book where the name _Bartimaeus_ is printed next next to the word _Deceased_.

**#39 - Smile:** Bartimaeus is baffled by Kitty’s unerring ability to recognize him in any of his guises, and though Kitty doesn’t tell him this, it’s because he’s always wearing the same sardonic grin.

**#40 - Innocence:** “ _No one’s_ done this to you before?” Kitty asks, incredulous, and Bartimaeus can only clutch at the sheets and beg for more.

**#41 - Completion:** A quickening in his essence, and then an explosion of white-hot lightning tears through him and, just for a moment, there is no space between them as he comes and comes and _comes_.

**#42 - Clouds:** “English weather is depressing,” Bartimaeus mutters, and Kitty says, “Pick somewhere else and we’ll go.”

**#43 - Sky:** Nepal, as it turns out, is unbelievably lovely with its broad mountains and bright sky, and Kitty isn’t sure whether to marvel at the landscape or at seeing Bartimaeus unabashedly _happy_.

**#44 - Heaven:** “I love you,” says Kitty, “but you are an idiot,” and Bartimaeus’s mind catches on the first part of that sentence and replays it over and over, a stupid grin spreading over his face.

**#45 - Hell:** Kitty spits curses into his face and is utterly unafraid to tell Bartimaeus what she thinks of him; he finds that he appreciates her blunt honesty.

**#46 - Sun:** “Of course you like the heat,” Kitty sighs, “You don’t have to worry about sunburn.”

**#47 - Moon:** When Bartimaeus thinks on it, when he recalls the night he saw her fighting off a pack of werewolves, he realizes that perhaps he never really had a choice in whether to love her.

**#48 - Waves:** Bartimaeus wonders if Kitty takes her baths with the door open solely to torture him, because if he could stomach water just a _little_ better...

**#49 - Hair:** Kitty’s silver hair glints in the sunlight or she drops a plate and shouts an especially creative obscenity or she publicly assaults a magician (long story) and Bartimaeus thinks: _Oh, yes. This is why I care._

**#50 - Supernova:** Kitty’s aura is like a solar flare, the way light pours out of her, and when Bartimaeus is close to her, he feels that he wouldn’t even notice if the sun actually went out.


End file.
